


Time Travel and Moments Out of Time

by Luthien



Series: Luthien Does Writer's Month 2019 [9]
Category: Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Australia, Alternate Universe - Coffee Shops & Cafés, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - Road Trip, Australia, F/M, Holiday Fling, holiday romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-10
Updated: 2019-08-10
Packaged: 2020-08-14 13:23:18
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,880
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20192986
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Luthien/pseuds/Luthien
Summary: The aftermath of what happened on the beach. Something that was lost is found. Brienne calls a friend for advice.Continues on from whereTandem Surfing and Other Sports For Twoleft off.Fill for Writer's Month 2019 Day 9: time travel





	Time Travel and Moments Out of Time

If Brienne had felt that time had slowed before, when it was just the two of them in bed together, it seemed as if it had come to a complete stop now. She could only gape for a never ending moment, as Jaime stood over Hyle, his fist still ready and waiting.

She was vaguely aware of shouts from some of the people around them, and even a scream, but all she could do was look at Jaime, and then down at Hyle, and then back at Jaime.

Hyle groaned, and pulled himself up into a sitting position. "What the fuck was that for?" he muttered. At least he was no longer shouting, though probably only because Jaime had knocked the wind out of him.

"_That_ was for abandoning a lady by the side of the road in the middle of nowhere, without giving a thought about what could have happened to her," Jaime said.

Hyle shook his head, a bit like a dog shaking the water out of its fur, and winced. He lifted a hand and laid it gingerly against his jaw as he squinted up at Jaime. "What's it to you?"

Brienne wondered what Jaime's answer would be. What was she to him, after all?

"You're going to leave now, _mate_," Jaime said pleasantly, but his grin was sharp. Of all the smiles that Brienne had seen on his lips today, she'd never seen that one.

Hyle looked from Jaime to Brienne, and back to Jaime.

"Her?" he asked incredulously. "Really? How much is she paying you?"

Jaime grabbed Hyle by his shirtfront and hauled him up. "You. Are. Leaving. Right now. Do we have an understanding?" Jaime said through clenched teeth, a bare inch away from Hyle's face.

Hyle's face was white. "Yeah," he said. And then, when Jaime didn't let move, "Yeah. Yeah, whatever. Let go of me and you won't see me again."

Jaime dropped his hold of Hyle's shirt, and Hyle dropped back onto the sand.

"What's going on here?" A tall, broad-shouldered young man strode towards them. He was wearing red board shorts and a cap, in the same shades as the red and yellow flags that denoted the safest swimming area on the beach, and his bright yellow top had 'SURF RESCUE' printed across it in red.

"Nothing, now," Jaime said. "We had a slight disagreement but this gentleman is just about to leave."

The lifeguard's eyebrows rose. "Are you all right, mate?" He took hold of Hyle's arm and helped him to his feet.

"Suddenly I'm everyone's mate," Hyle muttered, shaking off the life guard's helping hand. "No, it's nothing. I'm fine."

"If you're sure," the lifeguard said, and turned to Jaime. "If I hear…" His eyes widened, as if in recognition, and his voice trailed off. "I'm sure we won't have to mention this again," he said instead of whatever he'd originally intended to say, and in a much more respectful tone.

"I'm sure we won't," Jaime said.

The lifeguard gave him a nod, before turning and going back the way he'd come.

Hyle dusted some of the sand off his t-shirt and jeans, and stumped off over the sand without a word of farewell or a backward glance.

Jaime turned to Brienne, and it was only then that she felt able to move again. Jaime took her hand and they pushed through the small crowd that had gathered. Not that they had to push very hard—the crowd parted a bit like the Red Sea when they saw Jaime coming towards them. Brienne hoped that didn't mean that someone was going to come to grief in the fallout of what had just happened, like the Egyptians.

"Why did you do that to Hyle?" she asked when she felt capable of speech again, though part of her was still wondering, _What's it to you?_

"He had it coming, for exactly the reasons I told him." Jaime was still holding her hand, and he pressed it tight for a second. "And because I like you. Perhaps you'd noticed?" He was smiling at her again. The right smile, the smile that said 'Jaime' to her more than anything else about him, and not the shark's smile he'd directed at Hyle.

Brienne looked down at the sand, feeling suddenly shy for the first time since she'd gathered her courage and kissed him when they'd arrived at his suite. She made herself look up again after a second or two, and look him properly in the eye. "I've noticed. It was a bit hard to miss," she said dryly, and somehow they were sharing a grin. "No one has ever acted as my knight in shining armour before. I usually look out for myself without any trouble."

"I'm sure you can," Jaime said, stepping back to look her up and down.

Brienne tensed, then, with effort, made herself relax. His look wasn't critical, not some sweeping assessment that found her wanting. His gaze lingered here and there, slowing to something that was more like a caress than anything else, and the look in his eyes, when they returned to her face, was one of unmistakable admiration. It made no sense, but it was obvious that Jaime looked at her and saw something, someone, that he liked. That he admired. That he _wanted_.

It made no sense, but it didn't have to. It was only for a week, and for that week Brienne would live by different rules. And rule number one was that she was the… the _lover_ of Jaime Lannister, who wanted to kiss her and touch her and make her come, and lie in bed with her in his arms. Jaime Lannister who wasn't ashamed to be seen with her, or to kiss her in public. Or to punch another man because he'd treated her badly. And if she felt the slightest twinge of unease about that last bit, as well as shock and a weird sort of elation, well, all of it was only for a week. Once the week was done, it would be as if they'd never met, as if Jaime had never existed.

"You don't have to look out for yourself this week," he said, echoing her thoughts. "You have me."

"I suppose after this I'll never see my luggage again," she said with a small sigh, but she took his other hand and moved in close. His hands were warm in hers and his long body fitted against her like no one else's ever had. Brienne was assailed by a sudden flash of remembered sensation, feeling the rasp of his stubble against her overly-sensitive skin, and a tremor ran through her. She was so close that she could see Jaime's eyes go from green to something darker. "But it's more than worth it, and don't forget that the same goes for you: you have me, too," she said, her voice so low that no one else could possibly have heard unless they were standing as close to her as Jaime was.

"I'm glad to hear it," Jaime said.

"I think-" Brienne began, but Jaime was already letting go of her hands so that he could take her face in his hands and kiss her. Just a short kiss, this time. An appetiser rather than the main course.

"What are you thinking?" His eyes were narrowed in amusement, and possibly anticipation, if Brienne was reading him right. And she was pretty sure she was.

"I'm thinking…" Brienne tried to remember what she'd been about to say, but the thought was gone. It didn't matter. If it was important it was bound to come to her again later. "I'd like a cup of tea," she said, because that was almost always true.

Jaime shook his head and muttered something which might have featured the word 'English' in it somewhere. "I'm pretty sure there are some teabags back at the suite," he said.

"Are there?" Brienne asked as innocently as she could. "How convenient."

"That's one word for it," Jaime said, and his grin was positively wicked as he leaned in to capture her lips once more.

~*~

It was dark when Brienne awoke, and she was alone. She sat up, wincing a bit as her bare skin came into contact with the covers, and realised that she could hear voices talking in low tones outside the bedroom door. She got up and slipped through the connecting door into the bathroom. After wrapping herself in one of the oversized bathrobes that she remembered seeing in there earlier, she stepped out into the living area.

Jaime was standing by the entry door, wearing a pair of jeans and nothing else—a look that suited him very, _very_ well—talking to a brown-haired man of indeterminate age with a face that said it had seen a lot in its time, and much of it not pretty. Jaime turned as he heard her behind him, and held out a hand, indicating that she should come over to join them. His hand found hers as soon as she reached his side, and his fingers curled against the back of her hand, stroking softly. Their clasped hands were obscured by the folds of the bathrobe, but Brienne was sure that the other man noticed. He had a sharp-eyed look that suggested that he made it his business to notice everything.

"Brienne," Jaime said. "This is Bronn. He's brought your luggage."

"Oh!" Brienne gasped, and her hand flew to cover her open mouth as she looked down to see that the familiar grey case was indeed lying at Bronn's feet. "How did you- I didn't expect- Thank you! Mr..."

"Just Bronn," Bronn said. "It was easy enough." Brienne was surprised to hear London in his voice. He sounded a lot like the people who'd spent their whole lives in the area of south London where she lived. "Mr Hunt was quite cooperative once I explained the situation to him."

Brienne felt a twinge of unease at that. She wondered what Bronn's 'explaining' had involved.

"I should give him back his case in return," she said.

"Easier just to throw it in the sea," Jaime muttered. "He doesn't deserve any better."

"Yes, but I'd rather not have any trouble. If you throw it in the sea and it washes up on the beach, someone might find it, and the police could think…"

"Hey, I watched that episode of True Maritime Murder Mysteries, too!" Bronn looked impressed.

"Hunt's alive and unhurt. No one's going to think he's been murdered just because a case full of his dirty clothing washes up somewhere." Jaime frowned at Brienne and then Bronn and then Brienne again, and shook his head.

It sounded silly when Jaime put it like that, but Brienne shared a look with Bronn, and it was clear he understood.

"If you give me the case, I'll get it back to him," Bronn said.

"It's still in the car," Jaime said. "Just let me get the keys. And a shirt." He nipped into the bedroom and emerged a moment later, pulling a t-shirt on over his head. He stopped to give Brienne a quick kiss on the cheek. "I won't be long."

"Thanks again, Bronn," Brienne said.

"A pleasure to help out another fan of true crime, Miss Tarth," he said with a wink.

And then they were gone before Brienne could even tell him to call her Brienne. She popped up the handle of her case, and dragged it behind her into the bedroom. The castors worked flawlessly. That probably should have been her first clue this morning that the case she'd taken from the back of the car wasn't hers.

She tossed the case onto the bed and unzipped it. Her possessions inside were a mess, as if—as he almost certainly had—Hyle had rifled through everything. Nothing seemed to be missing, though, and after sorting through it a bit and getting everything into some sort of order, she let out a little cry of triumph when she found a thin white cable, right at the bottom. Her phone charger!

Brienne dug in her handbag for her phone, and wasted no time plugging it into the power point by the bed. After a minute or two, the screen lit up and the phone came back to life. There were several voicemail messages, and not just the ones from Hyle, and an email from her friend Margaery, asking her to _please call_ so she knew that Brienne hadn't been kidnapped or something.

Brienne smiled a bit wryly. She only watched true crime shows at all because of Margaery's morbid fascination with them. Margaery was into true crime not for the blood and gore, but to study the psychology—or so she claimed—and, sometimes, the ingenious methods used by the killers, like that granny who turned out to have poisoned half a dozen people at a wedding reception, including the bridegroom, and almost got away with it.

Brienne noted the time on the phone's display. It was just after 9.00pm, which meant it would be just after ten in the morning at home. Margaery should be awake by now, or, at least, she ought to be. If she wasn't, well… she was the one who had asked Brienne to call, after all, and Brienne suddenly found that she needed to talk just as much as Margaery's message had made clear she wanted to hear from her.

Brienne lay down on her stomach, propping herself up on her elbows with the phone in front of her. She found the app, face messenger or whatever it was, and clicked Margaery's name in the list of contacts. Halfway through the seventh buzz, just as Brienne was about to give up and try again later, the call was picked up at the other end, and then Margaery's face appeared on the screen, her hair spread out against the pillow behind her head. She peered back at Brienne blearily, and blinked a few times.

"Brienne?" Margaery said, blinking again. "Why are you calling me at… whatever hour this is?"

"Time to be up and about," Brienne said, mock-sternly. It looked like Margaery had had one of her epic Saturday nights last night.

"Maybe where you are," Margaery said, leaning forward. "It's morning here, _Sunday_ morning."

"Well, it's evening here. Just think of this call as time travel."

"That doesn't help," Margaery said. "God, my head hurts. I need coffee. And a cold pack." But she let her head fall back against the pillow again without making any other attempt to move.

"You don't seem too surprised to find out that I haven't been kidnapped," Brienne said dryly.

"Oh, well, that was last night," Margaery said with a dismissive little wave of a hand. "I know you're far too sensible to-"

"I'm having a holiday fling," Brienne blurted out, before she lost her nerve and wound up not mentioning it at all.

"Oh, Brienne," Margaery said, suddenly all seriousness. "Tell me you didn't give in to Hyle."

"I didn't give in to Hyle," Brienne repeated. "And before you ask, no, I _really_ didn't give in to Hyle. We argued this morning, he left me by the highway in the middle of nowhere, I walked to the nearest town, where I met… the man I've been in bed with for most of the afternoon and evening."

Margaery squeaked, and for a moment she disappeared from view, but then she was back, her face taking up a lot more of the screen. "Bri-enne! I didn't think you had it in you. I'm so glad I was wrong! What's he like?"

Brienne sighed. She should have known that Margaery would see nothing wrong in hooking up with a man she'd only met earlier that day in… well, inauspicious circumstances didn't even really begin to cover it.

"What?" Margaery asked, reading her expression all too clearly, even beamed from half a world away.

"I was wondering if you were going to tell me it wasn't a good idea," Brienne said.

"Bri, darling, it would only have been a bad idea if you'd slept with Hyle again, and by the sound of it he's completely out of the picture now, so, tell me about this new guy. Who is he? What does he look like. What's he like in bed? How big is his-"

"His name's Jaime," Brienne said quickly. "He's very… kind."

"Kind? How old is he?" Margaery frowned, obviously thinking that Brienne had found herself some lonely middle-aged man whose looks were way down the list of the best things about him.

"Older than me, but not _old_. He looks… well, I think you'd probably describe him as attractive. I certainly think he's quite attractive." That was a massive understatement, but Brienne didn't know how to begin telling Margaery about just how ridiculously _beautiful_ Jaime was, most particularly how he looked when it was just the two of them, no one else, no world outside, not even any clothes, but just skin against skin and...

"I think you dropped out for a second there," Margaery was saying. "I asked if he's tall."

"Almost as tall as I am."

"Well, that's an improvement on Hyle all by itself."

"So…" Brienne said. She didn't know quite how to say this, so she just said, "Margaery, what should I do? You know I've never been good at... casual sex, and yet here I am, right in the middle of… this."

"You should go for it, of course!" Margaery said, and then winced and touched her hand carefully to her forehead.

"Have you ever…?" Brienne asked, as delicately as she knew how.

Margaery's grin was wicked. "You remember that cruise I took around the Greek Islands last summer?"

"The one on the sailboat?"

"That would be the one, yes," Margaery said. "There weren't all that many people, it was only a small-ish boat. There were a few couples, but all the rest sort of paired off over the course of the ten days. I moved into the captain's cabin the second day out. He was tall and dark and handsome, a little bit of a Greek god. And yeah, he knew it, but he knew what he was doing in the sack, too, and he was fun company for the rest of the holiday."

Brienne's eyes widened. Margaery had told her about her little cruise, of course, but she'd never mentioned this side of it before. "And… and that was okay? Between the two of you, I mean, that it was only going to be a short time and then it was going to be over?"

Margaery shook her head. "Oh, Bri. That's just how these things work. The whole point is that they're only short-term, like one long moment out of time. You have fun together, don't ask too many questions of each other about the life you live when you're at home, at the end you kiss each other goodbye, and you're left with a set of nice memories to keep you warm if you find yourself alone in bed on a cold winter's night."

"So you think I should do that?" Brienne asked.

"You're going to be home for New Year, aren't you?" Margaery said.

"Yes, I'm flying out next Sunday."

"And he doesn't have commitments, work or anything, before then? No _wife_?"

"No. No wife, and no commitments for the moment. He's Australian, but he's on holiday, too."

"Better and better!" Brienne could almost see Margaery rubbing her hands together. "You should definitely do just what I did, then. Minus the boat, obviously, and also the thing I had with the first mate towards the end…"

"Oh, Margaery, you didn't," Brienne said, putting her hand over her face for a second. "No, don't answer that. Of _course_ you did."

"Enjoy your holiday fling, Brienne. You deserve one more than anybody I know," Margaery said, completely serious again. It was that aspect of her that always endeared her to Brienne. Margaery could be a complete hedonist, but she cared for others just as much as she cared for herself, and she wanted everyone she loved to be happy.

"Thanks, Marg. I'd already decided—we'd already decided—to spend the week together, but it helps to get a second opinion before I dive right in."

"Sounds like it's too late to worry about the diving, but I'm more than happy to provide advice about swimming lessons," Margaery said. Brienne couldn't be sure because of the small screen, but she thought Margaery might have just winked at her. "Have _fun_ Brienne, and when you get home you can share all the juicy details. Make sure to bring back plenty of pictures. I want to see just what kind of guy could make you think a holiday fling was worth your while."

"All right, Margaery. I'll take some pictures," Brienne agreed. It was a good idea. Then she could look at her holiday snaps when she got home, and prove to herself that it had been real.

She heard the main door of the suite click open, and Jaime call out, "I'm back!"

"I have to go," she told Margaery. "I'll text you," she promised.

"As I said, Brienne: have fun. That's a command!"

"Yes, ma'am!" Brienne said. She was laughing as she closed the connection.

"What's so funny?" Jaime asked from the bedroom doorway.

"I was just checking in with a friend." Brienne indicated her phone. "She was a bit concerned that she hadn't heard from me today."

Jaime nodded, and came over to sit on the bed beside her. "So, Bronn is going to deliver the case back to Hunt, and that's the end of that."

"Thank you," Brienne said. Margaery had said it was best not to ask too many questions when on a holiday fling, but Brienne still found herself asking, "Who _is_ Bronn? Apart from a man who fetches and delivers lost luggage, I mean."

Jaime laughed. "He works for me, sorting out things that need to be sorted. He's an old friend of Tyrion's, actually."

"Really? They seem like they'd be a bit of an odd pair."

"Oh, you wouldn't believe what they can get up to when they're there to egg each other on. Or what they used to get up to before Tyrion met Shae, anyway."

"I don't think I want to know," Brienne said primly, but she spoiled it with a tiny grin. Maybe that was why Jaime felt the need to lean down and kiss her right then. Brienne rolled onto her side, pulling Jaime with her as she deepened the kiss.

Jaime lifted his head after a moment. "I was going to suggest room service. Again," he said, his voice a low purr. "But maybe you'd rather skip dinner and go straight to dessert."

Brienne pretended to think about it a moment. "Dessert," she decided, "and _then_ dinner."

They were both laughing as their mouths found each other again. Brienne felt Jaime's cock through his jeans, firming against her thigh, yet again, and she smiled into the kiss.

This was the only holiday fling she ever intended to have, and she was going to make the most of it.

**Author's Note:**

> To be continued with tomorrow's prompt: Dark AU


End file.
